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Thursday, 21 September 2017

Hello readers. I have had quite the break from blogging about horror movies and metal music. That isn't to say my love for either thing has diminished in any way. I took too much on, with fighting through court to see my children and studying for a degree in psychology and criminology, as well as working on music and putting up wih my general ill-health, complete with yet another diagnoses for another illness to which there is no cure, and it is safe to say that things got ontop of me and I stopped writing . Cold turkey.

Thankfully, Eric Hyde offered to write some reviews, and was kind enough to provide reviews to films I have not covered, breathing some life back into the slowly rotting corpse of a blog. I can't thank him enough for providing content when I could not, and he is more than welcome to come back anytime with reviews, essays or just a general display of affection for horror.

So, without further ado, are you ready to take my hand once more and dive into the World of Horror? Yes. With all of that going on, I have now found the motivation to begin writing once more. I'm going to kick things off once more with a review of Amercian Guinea Pig: Bloodshock which will go live in the next few days. For anyone who has stayed with me, I appreciate you reading through the musings and reviews here. Here's to the ressurrection of The World of Horror!

Saturday, 18 June 2016

Let's see. Did I watch this movie due to my obsession with horror movies,
or just because WWE wrestler Kane was in it? A little bit of both. Yes,
it's true. I'm a big wrestling fan, but that also doesn't mean that I'll
have to see a movie that any wrestler is in. So since I'm a big fan of
Kane, does that mean I'll be unbiased towards this review? Well, yes
actually.

The plot is very simple. It's simple for a horror movie even. A group of
teenagers are part of a work release program. They are going to get
time off of their sentences if they help clean and fix up the run down
Blackwell hotel, so it can become a homeless shelter. Unknown to them
however, serial killer Jacob Goodnight is using the hotel as a hiding
spot. The police officer watching the kids is the same officer that lost
his arm and shot Jacob in the head years ago at a crime scene. There
you go, that's pretty much it.

The good points are that of course the kills are pretty inventive. I
can't really ruin any of them, but they are brutal. Really bloody, and
I'm surprised that this DVD wasn't unrated. It's really nice to see
gore, violence, and even nudity in a movie done by WWE films, especially
since their wrestling product is now TV-PG. The director Gregory Dark
uses great ways to cut the film, speeding up some scenes and the angles
he uses for a lot of the shots. Pretty creative. But they guy directs
music videos and used to direct porn, so that shows he knows all about
camera angles.
Another thing I really enjoyed was Kane's performance. He has only two
or three lines of dialogue in the movie, so he has to rely on body
language. And his facial expressions are great. He can really show
emotion, like frustration, anger, and confusion. He even has a scene
where he questions what he is doing, with his expressions, and I bought
it. And a bonus with his performance is that he's the first killer in a
movie like this that I've seen in a long time that actually feels pain,
as he is a human, and he will actually run after his victims. He also
has a very sad backstory that's told in random flashbacks. Very sad and
creepy. I must also praise Cecily Polson. I think she gives a wonderful
performance, but I'll leave anything about her character out of my
review as to not spoil anything.
The down side is it's a pretty short movie. About an hour and 26
minutes. You don't care for any of the other characters, aside from
maybe the teacher and the cop. Of course you go to these movies to see
them get butchered, but that's just me. I want to actually care about
some of them. Plus I would have liked a lot more interaction between
Jacob and the cop, especially due to their history together. There's
hardly any when they meet up in the hotel. that's really about it that I
don't like.
Overall, Not a bad slasher film. It was pretty fun and entertaining and I
was pleased in the long run. It's worth seeing if you love slasher
films. Same if you're a fan of Kane in WWE. But don't go in thinking it
will be up there with Elm Street, Friday the 13th, or Halloween. However
Jacob Goodnight could give Jason Voorhees a good run for his money in
the category of horror movie bad ass.

Sunday, 17 April 2016

*Contains minor spoilers*.
Alright. The plot is simple. Weird, original (I'll give it that), and simple. It is the story of a high school girl named Dawn whose vagina is filled with razor sharp teeth. Yeah , you read it. I have seen previews and have heard a lot of my friends tell me to see this. Granted they told me it wasn't really good, but I still had to see it. Uh...no I didn't.

The movie starts with Dawn, and she is part of a club at school for people who wait until marriage to have sex. She goes and speaks to younger kids and tells them about promise rings, abstinence and such. She meets a boy who also promises to wait until marriage, and they eventually become a couple. One day they go swimming together and find a cave to fool around in. He tries to rape her, but she fights him off. However, she smacks her head on a rock during the struggle and becomes dazed. He takes advantage and is successful in raping her. Suddenly *CRUNCH* he loses his penis (sigh). Yup. This goes on for the rest of the movie.

She finally meets a guy who can have sex with her, since it's consensual and in a relaxed state. But when she finds out he's using her, he loses it too (sigh again). Oh, and her step brother also wants to have sex with her. He does and loses it. But his dog has a snack afterwards, if you can read between the lines.

Let's see. The acting isn't great. The story is interesting, but the explanation of the cursed vagina is stupid in my opinion. All the camera shots to the things that resemble holes or dicks are overplayed. Like holes in trees, spikes in caves hanging down. Once or twice would have been fine, but it's constant overkill here. However, the gore is pretty good and will make a guy wince. I did a few times. No lie. But it isn't good enough to save this movie for me. If you're still interested, I say go for it. It might be for you, but it wasn't for me.

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to Eric Hyde's Youtube channel Hey, Internet Eric Here. Great reviews and great vlogs. Do it!

Friday, 8 April 2016

I've just got back from seeing Hardcore Henry, and it is simply mind-blowing. I say this as bluntly and without any form of pretense. It is a fresh, violent and bloody take on action-cinema that successfully pulls off something completely different, which in this day and age is a feat in itself.

I am not going to give anything away, as it works so much better knowing very little about the film, suffice it to say that if you aren't a fan of uncompromising violence, humour and films shot in the first person, then you would be well-advised to stay away, as this is Hardcore Henry in a nutshell.

I recently posted on Facebook that Hardcore Henry is now my favourite action movie, knocking The Raid 2 into second place. While The Raid 2 is an incredible film with complex characters, fight scenes and brutal violence, Hardcore Henry just seemed to top it all in every single way.

Pure pulse-pounding adrenaline-soaked madness from start to finish. Hardcore Henry is the best cinema-going experience I have had so far this year. It's even better than Deadpool. It's that good, and it doesn't need multiple uses of profanity to attempt to make the film more 'adult'.

Everything you want in an action movie is contained in Hardcore Henry, and there are numerous nods to FPS games such as Half Life, Call of Duty and even Left for Dead. Bullets and fists fly and many die. The body-count is incredibly high, as is the gore quota.

I honestly can't praise this movie enough. I loved every single second and urge each and every one of you to check it out! You won't be disappointed!!

Sunday, 27 March 2016

Wow. I really cannot find a better word to describe how I felt after my first viewing of this film. It left me feeling uneasy, nauseated, and nearly left me void of food, as the nausea increased countless times during the disturbing and realistic goings-on). If that isn't a mark of excellence, then I don't know what is, and you are definitely reading the wrong blog.

Horror comes in many different forms, be it films that chill, scare, repulse or create feelings of dread and sadness. American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore manages to bring all of these feelings into a seventy minute time frame and add a level of sadism and realism rarely seen in horror cinema (not since August Underground's Mordum has a film had such a profound effect on me).

At its most simplistic, AGP: Bouquet of Guts and Gore is the story of two women, one religious and one athiest who are kidnapped, drugged and then systematically dismembered by a beast of a man in a Baphomet mask, all the while being filmed by a crew who instruct the man how and when to systematically dismember the two women. I guarantee you've never seen anything like this.

I consider myself somewhat desensitised to whatever horror/splatter films can throw at me. Well, after seeing this and feeling like I had my stomach ripped out, cut open and the contents presented to me on a platter of splatter, I won't be so foolhardy in the future. AGP: Bouquet of Guts and Gore managed to repulse me, make me cringe, it very nearly made me look away from the screen and it haunted me. There are nice little touches in the film that are there to make the whole experience so much darker, such as mentions of religion, threats and an ending that is actually more affecting and chilling than any of the dismemberment shown on screen. I really felt sick to my stomach (yes, I know it isn't real, but that doesn't stop the emotional impact the last scene has. Perhaps being a parent made it even more hard-hitting).

If Flowers of Flesh and Blood got you wincing and shielding yourself from the viscera on-screen, then AGP: Bouquet of Guts and Gore is probably not going to be your sort of thing. What it does it take the very essence of that particular Guinea Pig film, and turns everything up to eleven and then doubles it again. Even if you enjoy blood, gore and dismemberment, this film breaks so many boundaries it makes the works of Olaf Ittenbach look like episodes of Friends (and I am a huge Ittenbach fan, so I mean no offence).

Put simply, American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore is at a level where no one has reached before. It pushes and breaks boundaries in every direction, contains more gore than an explosion in a cattle shed and coupled with all of the viscera, is one of the most psychologically affecting pieces of extreme cinema I have witnessed.

A few weeks ago, I finally got hold of a copy of Ryan Nicholson's 'Collar'. After thouroughly enjoying Live Feed, Gutterballs and Hangar, I was looking forward to seeing what Plottdigger films had to offer. I was surprised at just how mean spirited and utterly depraved Collar is, and it is all the better for it.

Collar follows a hulking homeless man named 'Massive' (played to perfection by Nick Principe), who has a reputation for Satanism and extreme violence, on his trail of murder and abuse. A rookie cop is held against her will by Massive, but this is only the start of her nightmare and of Massive's ritualistic abuse and torture'.

Nothing could have prepared me for what Collar shows on screen. While Hangar pushed the boundaries with gross-out humour which worked with the paralell of gruesome shocks, Collar ditches the humour altogether. This is a horror film that excels in making the viewer feel like they are experiencing something very 'wrong'. The grime, brutality and debauchery present in this film seeps from every frame. This is a film that violates your senses in every way possible, and does not let up through its running time.

The brutality in this film will be uncomfortable viewing for many, but I can't help but feel that is the point. Horror films work better when the directors pull no punches, allowing the viewer to feel like they are in the hands of a madman, not able to second guess what is going to happen next. Not only does Collar succeed in this respect, but it pushes so many boundaries that it becomes a test of endurance just to make it to the end.

Collar is the perfect film for horror fans who are bored by the recent crop of CGI ghosts and such like. Its horrors are real, and there are no punches pulled. While it might not be for everyone, it is for those who like to see boundaries broken again and again. Although it may feel like you need to shower to wash the filth off you after viewing Collar, it is a fantastic film and manages to fit so much depravity into a 70-plus minute running time, it'll leave you breathless and disgusted.

Darkest regards......Dani.

P.S There is an Indiegogo campaign to help Ryan, Meg and Tyler Nicholson. I implore you to go over and read about the campaign and share/donate/ if you can. There are only four days left, so lets do all we can to help reach the target!

To check out the indiegogo and either share or donate (or do both) just click HERE.

Thursday, 24 March 2016

"Sounds like there is some shizzle going on down there my nizzle" -Pavel.

**CONTAINS SPOILERS**

The name of the film says it all. It's a B-movie, so it makes perfect sense to have the king of B-movies, Bruce Campbell, to star in, write and direct it. Bruce plays William, who is on a business trip with his wife in Bulgaria. They end up hiring Yegor to be their taxi driver for the day. On one of their trips through town, they drive through a Gypsy town which is a small community of, what else, Gypsy's. They almost run over one woman, that is revealed to have once been engaged to Yegor. She is also the housekeeper of the hotel William and his wife are staying at.

William catches her stealing a ring he bought for his wife. He chases her outside the hotel, but she ends up nearly killing him with a severe blow to the back of the head, taking off part of his head as well. Yegor sees this and ends up getting killed by her. William dies in the hospital later. Across town, Dr. Ivanov (wonderfully played by Stacey Keach) and his sidekick Pavel are trying to make brain transplants on humans successful. They hear of William and Yegor's death and decide to steal their bodies to make the operation work. Lo and behold, it does. Now both William and Yegor's thoughts occupy William's body. They must work together to find the woman who killed them and get revenge, but they also must deal with getting ill, due to them sharing the same brain cells.

This is obviously a homage to those cheesy sci-fi movies from the 1950s, by the way it was written and shot. The budget was almost non-existent, but it worked. The acting was surprisingly good. Bruce is in top form as always, and throws in a lot of slap-stick (circa Evil Dead II) when he has to fight with Yegor for control of what is now their body. Everyone else is in fine shape acting-wise as well. Very well done all-round.

On a side note, I know Bruce is the star, but Ted Raimi as Pavel owns the movie. He talks in a Snoop Dogg-type dialogue and is so funny. I can honestly say I busted up EVERY time he was on screen (trust me on this). So in closing, I say this movie was surprisingly a great way to spend 90 mins. Worth checking out or even owning.